Sweden stands in front of a historic transformation of the transport sector. The electrification of bus traffic is crucial for us to succeed in reaching our climate goals. Electrification, however, entails new challenges in the field of sustainability with complex global supply chains in the manufacture of batteries and electric vehicles and risks linked to these. China is the world’s largest producer of new energy vehicles, dominates the global production of batteries, and will continue to do so in the near future. 

There is a need for increased knowledge to ensure responsible procurement of products and services that contribute to an environmentally, socially and economically sustainable society. Therefore, ETI Sweden, together with the Region Stockholm/SL, Luleå Lokaltrafik, Skånetrafiken and Västtrafik, has investigated the risks involved in the manufacture of batteries and electric vehicles in high-risk areas. This report provides information on human rights at battery and electric bus manufacturers in China relevant to Swedish public procurement of transportation services in 2022.  

We have conducted a study on state-sanctioned forced labour and working conditions at battery and electric bus manufacturers in China relevant to Swedish public procurement in 2022. The manufacturers included in this study are BYD, CATL, Durapower, LG Chem, Panasonic, Samsung SDI, SK Innovation, and Yutong. The study is based on publicly available government documents, social media posts, and articles. Previous reports, newspaper articles, and scholarly publications have documented how poverty alleviation programs in China facilitate forced labour of Uyghurs and other Turkic ethnic groups in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Further, we extracted about 1.12 million posts and analysed them through our platform Social@risk™, a framework for qualitative content analysis and quantitative trend analysis of social media data. This approach allows us to get closer to workers’ own agenda and to appreciate grievances as rights holders describe them.